KRASNYI LYMAN, Ukraine – Fighting raged in Ukraine’s restive east on Tuesday less than 24 hours after peace talks were held and all sides had agreed to a cease-fire.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said pro-Russian insurgents had violated the agreement overnight when they killed a government serviceman.

“Unfortunately there were violations of the ceasefire from the other side,"Poroshenko’s press service quoted him as saying on Tuesday afternoon. "Last night there were another eight cases, one soldier was killed, seven were wounded.”

Poroshenko said late Tuesday that he had gathered military leaders following the attacks on Ukrainian troops. He said he would not rule out terminating the truce ahead of Friday.

Pro-Russian insurgents shot down a Ukrainian MI-8 helicopter involved in the government’s “anti-terrorism operation” on Tuesday near Sloviansk, a separatist stronghold, Vladislav Seleznev, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s counterinsurgency operation said.

Dmitry Tymchuk, a military analyst and head of the Kiev-based NGO Information Resistance, reported that nine Ukrainian troops were killed after the helicopter was hit by a surface-to-air missile and crashed.

“Terrorists shot the helicopter down using MANPADS [man-portable air-defense systems]. Preliminary findings indicate that nine servicemen, including three crewmembers, have been killed,” Tymchuk said.

Ukrainian army soldiers speak at a check-point near a city of Slovyansk, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine Tuesday, June 24, 2014.

Image: Mstyslav Chernov/Associated Press

Early on Tuesday, the cease-fire appeared to be holding in most of the east. But then Seleznev reported that rebel forces attacked a Ukrainian base north of Sloviansk late Monday using small arms, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades.

The violence carried into Tuesday, when “illegal armed formations” carried out a mortar attack on a Ukrainian checkpoint near Sloviansk just after sunrise, injuring two servicemen, the National Guard’s press service said in a statement.

The National Guard also said that Ukrainian roadblocks near Sloviansk had come under fire at least four times over the span of 24 hours.

From the hills of Krasnyi Lyman, a former separatist stronghold liberated last week by Ukrainian forces, plumes of black smoke could be seen in the direction of Sloviansk. Ukrainian National Guardsmen manning newly erected block posts in the bucolic town appeared on edge. Five of them, their fingers on the triggers of their automatic rifles, thoroughly questioned each person, scrutinizing passports and registrations, and searched each vehicle passing through.

Image: Dmitry Lovetsky/Associated Press

Meanwhile dozens of others worked to erect a new tent camp and dig trenches. Eleven armored vehicles, including four tanks, were parked nearby, and a sign reading, “Warning: Minefield” was displayed prominently at the block post’s entrance.

The fresh clashes come after pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine announced Monday that that they would adhere to a cease-fire declared by Poroshenko last Friday and agreed upon by separatist leaders on Monday evening. The agreement seemed to signal a possible end to what have been the bloodiest months in Ukraine’s independent history. Since the onslaught of Ukraine’s counterinsurgency campaign in mid-April, hundreds of government troops, separatist fighters and civilians have been killed in violent clashes that have involved heavy weapons and even airstrikes.

The multilateral peace talks involving representatives of Kiev, the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics and Russia were held in the Donetsk regional administration building, the separatists’ headquarters yesterday.

On Tuesday evening, it was apparent it had already ended.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday afternoon asked the Federation Council, the upper chamber of Russia’s parliament, to rescind a resolution introduced on March 1 that would allow for the country’s armed forces to intervene militarily in Ukraine, the head of state’s press secretary said on Tuesday.

Putin’s request is “aimed at normalizing the situation in the eastern regions of Ukraine and comes in response to the launch of trilateral negotiations on this matter,” Dmitry Peskov said.

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